Close Encounters 0
by chezchuckles
Summary: A short piece about the four days of surveillance that Agent Castle undertook before making contact with Detective Beckett. For Jessie - Happy Birthday!
1. Chapter 1

**Close Encounters 0**

* * *

**Happy Birthday, Jessie**

_This is the story before the story; this is where_  
_he first loves her._  
_May we all be loved from afar._

* * *

Agent Castle loitered on the street outside the 12th Precinct and ignored the vagrant who was giving him the evil eye. Castle's suit jacket was pulled tight across his shoulders, ill-fitting after a long few months abroad. It meant he'd have to have them all replaced when he managed to get back to the CIA apartment his clothes called home, but for now, no sudden movements.

He wasn't looking to Hulk out.

Castle had been hitting the gym harder this time, after that near-fatal encounter with the North Korean ninja (he was going to persist in calling him a ninja, otherwise the idea that the guy had just plain gotten the drop on Castle was shameful and irritating to the extreme). But he'd gained ten pounds of pure muscle, and just _let_ that ninja drop out of the sky today. Just let him.

South of his location and along the Hudson River, his team had the Chinese consulate well covered, and his phone gave him the status updates one after another; alerts came in and he glanced at them from time to time but his eyes were on the NYPD substation across the street.

He was waiting for her.

She came out at just that moment and his chest caught against the fabric of his jacket and strangled him even as she headed down the sidewalk. Away from him. Her badge and weapon were out of sight under her blazer, her walk was purposeful but not strident, and she held her phone in one hand but didn't commit the rookie's mistake of sticking her nose in it.

She was the consummate professional.

She was gorgeous.

He wasn't supposed to care.

* * *

Agent Castle couldn't help himself; he opened the door to an establishment dubiously named Remy's, and he stepped inside the warm wood interior. She was at a booth, staring out the window, and she startled to awareness just as his eyes slid past her.

But it was the waitress coming to her with a pink milkshake and a burger - veggie? had to be - and fries, and the detective regarded the food like it was the holy grail.

Or the answer to her mystery.

Which Castle himself could most likely have cleared up in moments, or at least great swathes of it, but he wouldn't.

He wanted to spy on her.

She checked her watch as she ate, and while Castle was being shown a booth (_no thanks, how about over here?_ placing her directly in his line of sight, studying her profile from the corner of his eye), she ate with relish and absorption, as if the act itself was often mechanical and hit or miss, so she wanted to make this one count.

She scraped a hand through her hair and then jerked it down, stared at it, and he realized - french fry grease, salt, something - and she wiped her fingers off on a napkin even though he thought he saw a movement towards her jeans, like she was in the habit of just swiping it there but in public she'd stalled the motion.

He settled back in his seat and ordered the same as the woman - veggie burger with lettuce and sprouts and tomato, french fries even though he never touched them, and the pink milkshake (ah, it was strawberry according to the menu). He would see the scene from her perspective, watch her as he might a lover, cataloging every sigh and quirk, following every nuance of her behavior until he knew her better than she knew herself.

Kate Beckett. The detective with the long hair in waves and the tight jeans and narrow hips and those sinful, forever legs that he could already _feel_ wrapped around his waist and that mouth - how it would drop open and her eyes would darken and his name would rip from her throat-

Except.

What would his name be?

There his fantasy collapsed. She was a job. Detective Kate Beckett had inherited his Chinese spy, and he had to know what she knew.

No more than that.

_Stick to the program, Richard._

* * *

When the call came in on her iphone, he realized that she'd skipped out on the 12th just to have this moment to think. To step back and reassess the case.

She sat up straight and banged a knee into the table top in her effort to get out of the booth, but it did the job and attracted the waitress's attention. Beckett must be a regular because she circled her finger at the table and bolted from the diner with the phone at her ear.

Castle watched the waitress come slowly over, pick up the plate and the milkshake. But instead of bussing the table, the woman was carrying everything back to the register at the front and boxing it up, pouring the milkshake into a to-go cup.

Huh.

Beckett hadn't paid and the waitress knew to leave her stuff for later. He watched as the woman carried it all to the back - presumably to a walk-in fridge where it would wait for the detective's return.

It was a usual thing then, this dashing off in the middle of her meal.

He wasn't stressed about following her because he had her phone GPS tracked and the second team would be on her. And at just that moment, Eastman's ID lit up his screen and Castle answered.

"You got her?"

"Free and clear. She met her team outside the 12th and they are on their way."

"No stops?"

"No stops," Eastman confirmed. "She's a looker."

"You got a wife," Castle grinned.

"I'm thinking for you."

"Shut your mouth," he laughed, but the idea of it kicked at his heart. "Stay on her until ten. I'll come spell you."

"All righty. You're keeping this off-books, aren't you?"

He winced. "You know Black would-"

"I know. I also know that he turns a blind eye to your. . .creative thinking."

"Not for long," Castle huffed out, rubbing a hand down his face. He pushed the plate of fries away, sickened by the grease. "I have maybe a week following the detective before Black gets pissed and yanks me off. She's gotta find something."

"She will. You saw her solve rate."

Yeah, but he'd also seen her staring out the window, searching for a clue, needing a little _push_. "I have got to find this Chinese mole," he muttered. "That last op in Shanghai got-"

"Shanghaied," Eastman chuckled.

Castle snorted into the phone; he could always count on Eastman lightening the mood. "Yeah, in a manner of speaking. I have no idea why the North Korean Ninja was following this one, but it's putting a lot of good men at risk. I can't have that. Black knows I'll do whatever it takes to get that information back, even if it means breaking a few rules."

"You're not usually a rule-breaker," Eastman said non-committally.

"No," he said tersely. Not after Ireland. "Damn, I wish we'd gotten to that body first."

Eastman was silent, as Eastman always was when Castle was still gnawing on a mission that didn't sit right with him. He didn't like their options - staking out one of the good guys in the hopes that she'd find the information they were looking for and flush out the Chinese operative.

And yeah, technically it was illegal, spying on a US citizen, an NYPD detective no less. But he didn't have a choice. He had to trust that she could handle herself in whatever situation arose - North Korean Ninja or no.

Eastman cleared his throat. "Stop going over it and over it in your head, Castle. Just do the job."

He sighed and watched the waitress come back and wipe down the empty table. She headed for him with a polite smile, checking on his progress, the bill in her hand.

"I'll call before the hand-off," he said suddenly, not even saying good-bye as he ended it. He snagged the waitress's sleeve before she could pass him. "Miss? I'd like to pay for that woman's meal - the one who ran out."

"Oh, no. She's not a thief or nothing. Just a cop; she runs out like that a lot."

Castle gave her a brilliant smile. "I know. I saw her shield. That's why I'd like to pay for it."

The waitress flushed and took a few steps towards his table. "That's real kind of you."

"She keep a running tab?" Castle asked.

The waitress had the smarts to actually pause, narrow her eyes a moment in suspicion. _Good girl_, he thought. You never knew.

Castle shook his head and fished out his wallet, pulled his own credit card - an alias, but not paid for with CIA funds. "Here. You take this, bill me for whatever her tab is, put mine on it too. I won't ask any more questions."

The waitress hesitated, but she seemed to come to a decision and she plucked the card from his fingers with an easy grin.

"All right. Be right back with the slip for you to sign."

He watched her head for the register and he crossed his arms and put them on the table, studied the way the afternoon light came in the glass and warmed the wood.

He'd see her tonight.

Though she wouldn't see him.

* * *

He spent his afternoon at the Chinese consulate, or rather, just outside of it. Entirely in vain, no lead in sight, but he got a good look at the principal players and he knew something was brewing just by the constant flow of traffic in and out of those gates.

He also had the idea that the North Korean Ninja might be on loan to the Chinese for the duration of this mission, and he wondered if one of these catering vans had slipped him inside. Wouldn't put it past them.

When the sun had long since dipped down and the cold had permanently seeped into his car, Castle turned the engine and pulled out, a head nod to Foster who was taking over his station. Foster was parked in a black sedan, unlike Castle's favorite Range Rover, but they weren't going for clandestine here. Let the Chinese know they were being watched.

He had two hours before he had to relieve Eastman, so he used the time to scout a location for a later thing - even to himself, he didn't label it, didn't let the mission parameters enter his head because then he couldn't look at it too closely. What he had to do in a few weeks' time.

If he closed the Chinese spy ring and got his man - and that information - he might not have to.

All depended on Kate Beckett and how far he could go with her.

Well. No like _that._

Though that would be nice.

* * *

He had a parabolic mic pointed at her apartment but it was obtrusive and offered too many other inconsequential conversations to his ears. He bet Beckett wasn't much of a talker anyway, so he listened intently for a few minutes' time before putting it away. He was camped out in the back of the surveillance van parked in the alley beside her building, and they had eyes on the front entrance, the back, and the trash chute.

It was enough.

Be honest, he told himself. He'd put the mic away because it was too much of a temptation to listen in while went about her nightly routine. Whatever it was. He didn't know.

Yet.

The van had sliding panels high up on the side near the back doors, and he opened one up, the glass tinted to keep others from looking in. Castle put the binoculars to his eyes and angled them towards her window.

The light was on. He saw the dark shadow of her profile as a smudged, indistinct suggestion of femininity. She passed, moving in the direction of what he remembered was the kitchen, and the golden light of her home stayed steady and true.

She was up for a while.

He was content to lean back in the metal folding chair and watch the lamp at her window, letting its glow haze any pictures that might spring to mind.

But after a few minutes, he realized it was impossible.

He was crowded with images - real or imagined - of the way her body could fold up so small in that booth at Remy's and then unfurl so lithe and long as she headed back for the precinct - and how her body might fold in her bed or his and how she might rise above him, svelte and sure. He kept his eyes on that apartment window and could almost see the strong, delicate fingers scraping back her hair, the jut of her collarbones out from the thin tshirt she'd wear to bed, the elegant line of her arm as she reached for the fridge and took out some light snack - yogurt or a bottle of water.

She'd open it, either pulling the foil lid off or untwisting the cap, and she'd suck a drop of it from her thumb as she headed for the couch. Once more, those legs would fold up and her body compact neatly in the cushions and she'd lean against the arm and for one, held-breath moment, she would finally rest.

And then her mind, restless and ever-seeking, would start up once more and she'd put the bottle or yogurt down decisively on the coffee table and stand, and she would pace-

Castle grunted when her shadow passed the window, just as he'd imagined.

A trick of coincidence, that was all.

He didn't know her. He'd been following her for a handful of hours; there was no way he knew how her mind worked or the routines she had after a long day's fruitless work.

But he did.

He knew her.

He didn't know why he was so certain, but he knew her.

* * *

At four her apartment light finally went off.

He sat in the pre-dawn, that fuzzy grey to the air, and he wondered about her. This beautiful, sharp-edged detective whose mind wouldn't stop long enough for her to sleep. He wanted to know - everything.

No husband. No boyfriend. No pets. No hobbies. Her life was the work, the cases, these investigations into murder. Every place she'd gone for the past twenty-four hours related to one of the homicides stacked on her desk. Even at lunch in Remy's, she'd had that introspected, thoughtful cast to her features - still working the case.

All hard lines on the outside, but inside, where that mind whirled and spun and made connections, there was more. There was a life hidden there, shadowed and dark like this four a.m. morning.

He had the urge to introduce a spark, see if she'd light up.

Eastman rapped on the side of the van and Castle opened it up, let his friend hop inside the back. Eastman settled into the extra chair with a wink, tossed a brown bag onto the console.

"From my wife."

Castle grinned back. "I love your wife."

"Not more than me," Eastman said good-naturedly. "Eat it before I do. They're good."

Castle reached out and scooped up the bag, opened it to find two homemade cinnamon rolls wrapped in wax paper. He didn't eat this kind of thing - wasn't on the regimen - but Carrie Eastman's breakfast foods could always tempt him.

He dug the first one out and unwrapped it, wouldn't let himself lick the frosting from his fingers, and took a big bite.

"Damn, this is good," he groaned. Best thing he'd ever put in his mouth. Still hot too. "She woke up at four in the morning to make you cinnamon rolls?"

"Hell, no," Eastman laughed. "She made them yesterday. But she woke up while I was trying to slip out and heated them up, made me take a bag for you."

He grinned around his next bite and took the water bottle that Eastman held out to him, swallowed it down with relish. His eyes tracked to the monitors trained on her apartment and he had the sudden, irrational urge to lay the second cinnamon roll at her doorstep, offer it to her like a gift.

She needed someone in her life with warm cinnamon rolls, someone who could stay up with her until four in the morning or - better yet - turn that light off at midnight and drag her to bed. Any means necessary.


	2. Chapter 2

**Close Encounters 0**

* * *

He slept four hours at a place in the city that he'd appropriated last year but had never really managed to put his stamp on. It still looked sterile, but it served its purpose. He'd pissed off his father back then and maybe it'd been a stupid fit of temper, but he'd taken the apartment as his own and hadn't given the keys back.

Black had said nothing about it. Castle kept the place, held on to it because he needed it.

A place apart.

The last few years, actually, Castle had been restless. Up to four a.m. himself, if he was being honest. Working counter-intelligence for the CIA and chasing spies around the world used to put him straight out at night; he pushed himself to the breaking point but he never broke.

Until recently.

He wasn't breaking yet, but he felt it looming.

Castle stopped in at the cafe across from the 12th precinct and found Eastman hunkered down with coffee, texting his wife from his secure phone. Eastman startled, a little guiltily, and Castle only laughed and shook his head.

"Hey man, I know you can't stay away from her for-"

Eastman punched his shoulder and sat back in his cafe chair, but he didn't put his phone away. "I love my wife. You would too."

"Love your wife? Man, her cinnamon rolls alone-"

"Uh-huh. Wait till it happens to you."

He grinned but the image that rose up before him was as bleak and sterile as that apartment he'd slept in today. "Don't worry, won't happen. At least one of us needs to be a fine, fighting machine."

"It is a sad little world you live in. Come in from the cold, Agent Castle. Mighty fine inside."

He gave Eastman a dark look and rested his elbows on the table. "Fill me in on the subject."

"Oh, she's the subject now? Yesterday she was Beckett." Eastman knocked his elbow with a cup of still-warm coffee in a to-go cup. "Take it."

He wrapped his fingers around the cup and felt the hunch in his shoulders ease a little; he sipped the coffee and the case settled back on him. "She's the subject. And this is what we do."

Eastman gave him a sidelong look but he nodded. "This is what we do."

* * *

It was a taco bar this time; she must have called ahead because she was in and out in moments, loaded down again. She volunteered for the lunch runs, didn't she?

He noted the time and didn't follow her back to the precinct; he stood in the shade of an awning and watched her walk down the block with the bags in one hand and her phone pulled out, thumb scrolling.

He felt his time wearing out with her. He wanted more than sighting her across the binoculars in a van parked outside her apartment, more than following her down the sidewalk and watching the sway of her hips. He told himself it was because of the case, that the Chinese spy was of the most urgent importance, but he knew the truth of it.

He wanted her. Period.

At least he was man enough to admit it - if only to himself. He wanted to walk side by side with her on these lunch runs she took to clear her head, wanted to be the one she bounced ideas off of instead of her introspection and her remoteness. He wanted to try to make her _smile_ for once, and he couldn't even remember the last he'd smiled himself.

He cracked his neck, rolling his head around, and then he headed for the Chinese consulate once more, determined to stop thinking about her. The guys already had the 12th covered, and he probably only had their help for the next 48 hours. After that, he'd be baby-sitting her alone, so he had better take his opportunities where he could.

He found his hand on his phone and pressing speed dial before he could stop himself and then Eastman was chuckling in his ear.

"We got her, man. Cool your jets."

He sighed and picked up his pace. "I got a problem, Eastman."

The response was sharp and immediate. "What's wrong? I can be on you in ten-"

"No. Not a shadow," he grunted. "Her. I got a problem with her."

"The subject? I thought you said she was good to go. Solid. We-"

"No, not - it's not about the job. Or well, it's about being more than the job."

"Are you serious right now? You _like_ her? You're always the one getting into trouble with these women, Castle. You can't keep doing this. First Ireland, and recently - Sophia."

He growled and clenched his hand around the phone. "Don't."

"You know what I thought about her-"

"Don't. Not another word."

There was silence on the phone but Castle wouldn't relent. Not on this. The woman had been a traitor and a double agent, and she'd been trained to fuck him. That was all it had been. She'd fucked him, and then just because it might get her higher security clearance, she'd fucked his father as well.

Both of them knowing full well-

"Castle."

He grit his teeth and saw the subway station up ahead, decided to turn the conversation back to tried and true humor. "Thanks, Eastman. That about did it. Bring up Turner and my libido melts away."

"No problem. Here for ya, man."

He ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket but the problem was, this wasn't about his libido. He was attracted to her, hell yes and who wouldn't be?, but he wanted her in a way that was more than Turner had ever inspired. He wanted to bring her cinnamon rolls and coffee, wanted to know exactly how her mind worked and what theories she'd come up with, wanted to touch the skin at the back of her neck when she was vulnerable and had pulled her hair up and was ready for bed, wanted to be the one she came to first. He wanted - quite simply, tragically - her, wanted her in a forever way.

_You don't even know her, Richard. _

* * *

When the Chinese consulate was quiet and there was only the rush of traffic over the parabolic mic, when the late afternoon sunlight stretched golden and touched along the skyscrapers and shined like precious treasure, he ached.

He ached.

He had to see her.

The light and the sudden cool warmth of the sun across her cheeks, the way her hair shimmered only in his imagination, but he wanted to see it. To know. He was gone; he was so far gone; he didn't even care.

The consulate was dead as the grave and he gave up his position in the van to a guy hungry for more time in the field anyway - Reynolds, he thought the name was - and he got out on the sidewalk and took a breath of the Sunday in New York feel of the day.

It was coming to a close, all of it, and he felt that if he didn't do something soon, he'd miss it. He'd miss all of it, and he didn't even know what _it _was.

Something to do with her though.

* * *

He caught up with her at the Science Center, exiting the office building with a frown marring her face. Her hair was in layered waves around her shoulders and he wanted the right to curl his fist in it and tilt her head back to meet him.

Only with her in those shoes, he might not have to. She'd come up right at his eye level practically and her chest would brush his and he'd loop his arms around her waist to press her pelvis against his, that lovely feeling of having a woman close.

He couldn't remember the last time _that_ was what he wanted. An embrace? Damn, she was messing with his head.

Agent Castle checked in with the surveillance team and took over the detail, sending the two agents on ahead to the precinct. Even though it was approaching four, he knew she'd be back there, unable to rest, needing to get right back to it.

He kept his car idling at the curb a block from where she stood with two other male detectives - Esposito and Ryan, her own team - and he watched her confer with them for a moment. He saw her frustration clearly and he knew it was because his guys had gone in and cleared out the deceased's office, taken even the furniture.

He'd done it strategically, knowing she'd know what it meant: _tread carefully, there's more here than you think._

As a cautionary warning, it relied pretty heavily on her grit and determination to see this through despite the obstacles he was throwing in her path. And by the look on her face, she'd decided to buckle down and plow ahead, her grimace more indicative of annoyance than fear.

He knew she'd take it as a challenge, knew she'd feel his presence behind the move.

Well, no. Not him specifically - how could she know anything about him? But the government agent, the man in black.

He watched her, expecting to follow her back to the 12th and get started, but instead she gave her keys to the Latin detective and stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets. She turned for the sidewalk and began striding off, working out that frustration in every strong line of her step.

He watched the two detectives take the car and drive away. He watched her disappear into the sun.

She had surprised him. Of course she had; this woman wasn't like any other woman he'd met before. Not that they'd even met, really, but now she was taking her time back to the 12th, sending her team on ahead of her to get the ball rolling, while she. . .walked.

He cut off his engine and followed.

* * *

He had no idea where she was going. He'd thought she was taking a walk to clear her head, think about the strange disappearance of office furniture, but instead she had purpose to her steps. She had a place in mind.

Castle bit the bullet and stepped onto the same subway car as Beckett, watching her push her hair behind her ear and stand with her hip propped up against a bar. He stood as well, ready to get off at the other end of the car just in case.

She had her phone out, checking messages or playing a game - did she do that? Had she an online profile where she and that medical examiner friend of hers played Words on their phones? Or some other game, maybe the Zombies thing that he'd seen the boy in Shanghai playing.

He came up on his toes to see over the head of the businessmen between them and glanced at her screen.

Just her messages.

He wished, strangely, that she was playing a game, one he could sign on to and invent a name, seek her out and play anonymously. Trade words back and forth across a virtual board.

She lifted her head and her eyes caught his.

He gave her an appreciative quirk of his lips and obviously checked her out; immediately her eyes grew dull and dropped away, her disinterest loud and clear, dismissing him.

He wondered if she did that a lot. Did she feel his eyes and assume it was another man hitting on her? He was suddenly certain she lived her life being careful of the messages she sent with her body and her eyes, shutting men down the moment they approached.

Good. No one else could have her.

She stayed standing even though seats became available, her body swaying in time to the car on the tracks, and he kept his back half turned to her, watching her reflection in the scuffed windows as they hurtled underground.

She was pretty. Not just model gorgeous with those legs and perfect hair and severe cheekbones. But at this moment with her hair tucked back into a rubber band and her teeth biting her lower lip and her fingers cradling her phone, she was pretty. Not quite girl next door, never would be, but something called out in the softness of her jaw as her head tilted down, the vulnerable line of her neck.

She put her phone away after a few stops, tucking it into her jacket pocket, and he saw her getting ready to disembark, the firmer line of her shoulders, the wider stance, preparation in her frame. She pulled the rubber band out of her hair and shook it a little, causing more than just Castle's head to turn, but she was oblivious.

He leaned casually against the pole and waited for the subway train to hiss to a stop at the platform, noted the name of it. Still no idea where she was headed, but she got off first, the crowd parting for her as people would when someone with Beckett's self-possession came upon them.

He kept back, letting himself be lost in the crowd, confident that even if she saw him again, she'd dismiss him once more. A handsome face seen and not seen at the same time.

She had her hands in her jacket pockets as she ascended the subway steps, coming out into the setting sun's diffuse light, her head turning right and left as she merged with foot traffic. Castle entered the fray as well, the rush hour pedestrians going fast and furious, and he let the crowd take him along at their own pace, keeping about a block behind her.

She never even turned around.

When she got to where she was going, he startled to a stop, getting knocked from behind by an irritated man quick-stepping around him. Castle was riveted, caught off-guard by the location but more so by Kate. Her face was masked and shadowed by the stone arch of the cemetery, her body both defensive and grief-stricken at the same time.

And then she stepped through.

* * *

It was harder like this, tailing her without her noticing, and he loitered at the edge of the cemetery's fence and followed her with his eyes instead.

How had he missed this?

She looked defeated.

She changed the moment she stepped across the brown grass, her arms up against her chest, her head down, elbows tucked into her ribs. From behind, he could only see the dark slash of her body as she arrowed straight for a cluster of fresh granite, but the waver in her heels told him the ground was muddy and soft and she was just broken enough to let it throw her off-balance.

He had to battle back the fierce urge to go to her, put his fingers at one of those tight elbows to give her just enough support to keep going.

He couldn't. He couldn't; it wasn't his place and she'd never take it from him and she was the _subject_. This was a job and the nation's security depended upon him maintaining that line between them.

But even as she knelt before a stone, her fingers clutching at her throat and one hand coming out to press against the marker, he promised himself - he promised her - one day.

One day, they would come back here, and he'd be everything she needed to make that walk across the grass.

* * *

He watched her grieve for only four minutes before he turned his back and walked across the street and into a bar, settling down heavily at a well-lit booth where he could still see the street and memorial park. Since it wasn't his place - not yet, not yet - he would leave her this. For now. He would respect her privacy in this.

Castle nursed a beer without really tasting it, his fingers still against the amber bottle, his eyes intent on the entrance to the cemetery. He paid for his beer but stayed where he was even as the bar began to fill with after-work patrons.

He imagined her knees against the brown grass, the dip of her bowed head, strands of hair curling at her ears. Whatever she'd been clutching around her neck - had it been a ring? He could picture the stone and the exact spot where she was even now giving over into grief, and he wondered what he'd looked like.

Her fiance? Husband? Or her boyfriend and she'd found the engagement ring in a pocket of his dress pants one night when she'd finally built up enough strength to go through his clothes, the scent of him washing over her with every fold of a shirt into the box marked for Goodwill.

Castle should've known this. He should've found this already, been prepared for this. Damn it. She was on her knees in a cemetery and this was shit he should have _known_.

Who the fuck was it? Who had hurt her so badly that the moment she walked that grass, she'd collapsed in on herself?

He refused to pull out his phone and send the team scrambling for that information because that had been his job - his job to find out her background before making her a target - and he'd already fucked it up by _falling in love with her_-

No.

Castle groaned and rubbed his eyes, jerked his head up once more to be sure he didn't miss her coming out.

No.

This was infatuation, certainly, but it was a result of brushing up against her life in such an intimate manner. He was a professional _stalker_ is what he was; nothing more.

He timed her at twenty minutes, which must have felt like ages inside that wrought iron fence, and also no time at all when it came to all she was leaving behind. Castle knew he'd felt each and every single second of those minutes.

Now it was time to find out who drew her to that cemetery and why her fingers were blanched around a single diamond solitaire.


	3. Chapter 3

**Close Encounters 0**

* * *

Castle stared blindly at the stone labeled Beckett.

A woman?

How the hell had this slipped through? A woman, a relative of hers. He did a mental calculation of the dates and came up with an almost 48 year old woman who'd died a handful of days into the new year. Johanna Beckett.

And the detective? She'd have been. . .nineteen.

The Latin read, _Truth conquers all things._

He'd had no idea.

His fingers twitched against his thigh and he gave in and reached for his phone, did a simple search on the browser with the name and date, hoping against hope that all he found was an obituary, a paragraph about those she'd left behind and the legacy that remained. An embolism, a sudden heart attack, anything other than what he dreaded.

But he knew better.

He found the article immediately, dated in the next day's paper. Every terrible, agonizing detail. Her mother. Her own mother stabbed in an alley, the sensationalism of the reporting doing nothing to mask the horror.

Oh, God, her mother.

He saw again the form of her kneeling in the grass, the white hand against the grey stone and the flecks of black in the granite that made her profile blur into the mark of death, the line of her own body disappearing.

* * *

"Where is she now?" he breathed out quietly. But he was already at the apartment building and slipping inside.

"At the 12th." Eastman sounded suspicious.

"Just message me if she heads for home," he said.

"You've got to be kidding me."

He ended the call before Eastman could give him a lecture, big brother or no, and pulled the newly-made key out of his jacket pocket. He hustled up her stairs and ignored the fierce pound of his heart.

He just - wanted to know. He needed to know. Being a spy had taught him many things, and preparation was key to success. If he knew how it affected her, what kept her up until four in the morning, the reasons she visited her mother's grave when she was facing an obstacle - if he could parse her behavior and assign each moment meaning, then he might know her.

He might know her.

He needed to know her.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out even as he arrived in her hallway.

"Eastman, I don't have time for this."

"What you're doing is stupid."

"I know that," he grit out, dropping to one knee to see the lock.

"Then stop."

"I can't."

"If I'd known that you were getting Reynolds to make a spare key, I'd never have approved it."

"I know. I had to."

Eastman hung up first this time; Castle was grateful that his partner was both a brother and a friend as well, because he knew when to stop the lecture and just back him up. Castle pushed his phone back into his jacket and inserted the key carefully into the lock.

The sound of the tumblers falling into place made something fall into place inside him as well. The knob turned smoothly and easily under his hand. The door swung open and he was given that first insightful impression of Kate Beckett's apartment.

He was met with a home.

This was her _home_.

Castle stepped inside and shut the door softly behind him, breathing in a welcoming aroma of books and wood, soft blossoms and musk, and something exotic that he couldn't immediately identify. He wanted to say it was her, what she might smell like if ever he got close enough, her hair and her skin, the clean scent of her clothes mixed with whatever lotion or perfume this was.

He wanted to know, but he couldn't. That was one thing he would never know.

The front door came on into the living room but Castle stepped quietly towards the kitchen first, pushing past a tall bureau that doubled as a bookshelf - weathered turquoise and gold. Surprisingly bohemian, feminine.

He stepped through the open French doors that delineated the kitchen from the living room, and he ran his fingers over the dining room table - solid, sturdy, but clean lines and a perfect fit. She had four chairs pulled up but it didn't look like it got used that much. The centerpiece was a simple display of fruit in a bowl.

He touched one. Smiled. Plastic.

Moving on to the kitchen, he began by opening cabinets, not sure what he was looking for, just trying to get a sense of her. He found glasses right beside the fridge - and exactly where he might place them himself - and then plates and bowls, pots and pans. Stainless steel countertops and backsplash, but beveled glass windows ran the whole length of the back wall. It gave the appearance of a greenhouse, lending the kitchen a sense of space despite how narrow it was.

She had knickknacks set up on her kitchen counter, a decorative plate and what looked like a rooster-shaped creamer, a pair of elephant salt and pepper shakers, a frosted blue bowl. A few things looked to be stored under the island that separated the kitchen from the dining area, making the most of the space she had available, and he was surprised to see appliances that a serious cook might have.

He wondered about that; she didn't seem like one who used the kitchen much, let alone making fancy dinners. Castle, on a hunch, opened the fridge and glanced inside.

A temple of styrofoam, a shrine to fast food take out. Chinese, mostly, by the smell. An old. He pulled out a carton and popped it open, found the veggie burger and fries from Remy's. Limp french fries now, and the smell of cold greasy potato made his stomach clench.

He sighed and put it back, noted the condiments and the lack of fresh foods. No fruit, no deli meat, no non-frozen chicken or fish. A block of cheese - fancy - and a bottle of wine, a case of water bottles on the bottom shelf. He let the fridge door swing shut.

It depressed him more than it should.

He turned away from the kitchen and passed through the dining room, fingers brushing across the table once more, standing at the open French doors for a second.

On the other side of things, her living room looked like the turret of a castle.

And he liked that.

A lot.

Support beams ran to the left wall where skylights were set in the sloped ceiling; she was the top floor of a walk-up and now he knew why: the light. Spilling inside those windows, the kitchen glass behind him as well, the massive amounts of light kept the exposed brick and wood from overwhelming the small apartment.

Between the two beams at the floor was an arch window that glowed like a rosy fireplace, giving the illusion of warmth and cheer and romantic chivalry. She had a few lamps set up around the place and he could picture her on that overstuffed, damask couch, curled up with a book and her back propped up with throw pillows.

Instead of a coffee table, she had a round, white ottoman, scattered with photos and files, a temporary workspace, if anything. He found her laptop charging on a striped armchair near a floor lamp, another window just behind it - this one like a porthole, white brick framed.

His heart was pounding and his throat was dry just letting his eyes wander the space. He could see her here, he could see _her_. Period. Who Kate was. Not just the detective but more of the woman, the essence of Kate.

Little touches around the room - another elephant figurine, a rock paperweight on top of a stack of books, a vase filled with blue wooden flowers. She had a few framed prints, no mattes just glass, artistic things that were evocative and alluring. He found himself standing in front of a triptych just over her couch, staring.

A girl with her fingers spread out to the camera and a wide smile, black and white - was it Kate? some cousin? - and beside it a flash of a purple flower, bold in the green grass. Below those two was a professional photo of printed pages in a book, an echo of the black and white but with a lavandar book mark barely seen in the image. He narrowed his eyes to read the lines but he couldn't quite grasp the meaning. Something about the law? Something legal-

It was her mother. It was her mother as a child, smiling, hand out to the photographer.

He knew it with a certainty that made him desperate, even in this warm, close space.

Castle shifted away from the framed photos, barely able to see as he moved, found himself at a door and opened it before he could even think.

He hesitated on the threshold, the door half open and a provocative glimpse of clothes and warmth and flare and cluttered neatness beyond. The blinds were closed but raised a few inches to let in the light; a plant was growing just in front of it, green and delicate. His palms were damp and he clutched the knob a little harder and moved his gaze to stare at her messy bed.

Messy. Like she'd had a restless sleep and gotten up too early and had just left it as it was, wanting out.

His eyes were stuck on that wide, rumpled bed and the vision of Kate Beckett in it.

And he couldn't do it anymore. He took a step back, out of her space, and he closed the door after him, just as it was.

He needed her to invite him inside. He needed that more fiercely than anything. Ever.

He couldn't keep doing this.

Castle left her apartment.

* * *

He picked her up at Hudson University, overseeing CSU as they unpacked their gear from a black, unmarked van and hustled into the building of the physics department. He did a quick search on his phone and realized they had an altitude chamber, which would account for Marie's strange manner of death.

While he baby-sat the CSU van, Castle used his secure laptop to hack into her work computer. He'd taken note of the paperwork strewn across that leather ottoman, and as he'd suspected, none of them looked like open or active cases.

She worked cold cases at night, alone at home, trying to give someone else the closure she still lacked.

He scrolled through her case log until Beckett came blazing out, Ryan following along behind her. She looked fierce but thwarted.

Altitude chamber wasn't the scene of the crime then. She was getting into her squad car so he closed his laptop and started his own engine, waiting on her. Looking at her now, her control and isolation, her reserve and her strength, he had a funny taste in his mouth, bitter.

Was it shame?

He didn't know why.

He shook it off and pulled out into traffic, startled when a horn blared right at his rear tire, speeding up to close the distance. He checked but Beckett's car hadn't even stopped, had kept on going, so at least she hadn't heard the commotion.

How much of an idiot would he be? She made him stupid.

* * *

That night, he read the report on her mother, deleted it from his phone once he was done. He didn't log it into the case file as background info - he just got rid of it. He didn't want to have read it in the first place, but he told himself he needed to know where she might be blinded or biased.

He didn't, however, watch her sleep. He wouldn't let himself.

Castle stayed at his place and let Reynolds have the night watch. Opening his apartment door to the stark lines and soulless interior only reinforced his decision to get this case done with. Because of her, he was even looking at his own life differently, seeing lack where before it had been necessity and discipline.

He needed to stop seeing the angle of her elbows pressed against her ribs as she walked through that cemetery. He needed to stop wondering about her, about whether or not it was a four a.m. bedtime again or if she wore that ring around her neck every day, if she propped her chin on the back of her couch and looked at the photo of her mother as a child and then dug deeper into those cold cases on her ottoman.

He had to stop.

The next morning, he had a clearer outlook.

He did his job, hands off, just watching as she interacted with the principal players on this case. He couldn't help heading into Remy's before her, standing a few people back as she paid for the precinct's to-go order. He followed the team to another interview after lunch and tried not to remember how rich and lovely her home had smelled when he first walked in.

Castle made notes on his phone for follow up, but in some ways she was going the opposite direction of where he needed her to be. The ex-boyfriend, the UFOlogist - these guys weren't Chinese operatives, just ignorant acquaintances.

Still, Subbarao might have passed information to them, the men in her life unwitting accomplices to her espionage. It had merit; he'd have to get Deleware to do background checks, work up the usual profile.

Thing was, the more Beckett looked into Subbarao's life, the less everything seemed to fit together. He had these disparate pieces of the puzzle and he had a detective running around gathering _new_ pieces, and still Castle was getting nowhere.

The Chinese consulate was a dead end - no one of any interest was coming or going officially - and while they were still scouring the intake rosters on a variety of international flights, his team hadn't yet uncovered the North Korean Ninja. He honestly didn't even know the spy's identity - only fleeting glimpses of the guy as Castle had gotten the shit beat out of him.

Castle winced and ran a hand over the back of his neck.

He needed Beckett to rattle cages until she shook loose Subbarao's contact within the Chinese government. Once he had that locked down, he could get the rest of this done - finished.

He could walk away.

Castle could tell it was going to require some movement on his part to get her pushed in the right direction. The disappearance of office furniture evidently didn't meet her criteria for clandestine services, so he needed to do something to get her attention. Put himself right in her face-

No. The _case. _Put the real facts of this case up front and center, namely, that Marie Subbarao had gotten killed trying to betray her country. Ignore the ex-boyfriend and the UFOlogist, Beckett.

All Castle needed to know was where that damn satellite information had gone. Once he got the information, he was done here.

He was _ready_ to be done here. He needed to stop trailing after Beckett like a lovesick puppy.

It was time to do something drastic.

* * *

It'd been three fruitless day and of course - of course - Black was calling.

Eastman gave him a raised eyebrow and settled back in his chair at the coffee shop even as Castle debated ignoring it. Beckett was at the precinct bright and early, her face shuttered but fresh with determination, and so here he and Eastman were, trying to come up with a plan to force the detective's hand.

Castle sighed and took the call.

"Richard. Three days."

"I know," he said tersely.

"Now it's day four and you have nothing."

"Today," he promised. "It breaks today."

"Gut feeling, I suppose," Black said casually, but Castle could hear how very not-casual this conversation was.

He grit his teeth and released his fingers from around his coffee cup, forced himself to sit back and breathe. "No sir. I don't play my gut feelings," he said, exactly what Black wanted to hear. "But I've got a plan."

"A plan."

"Yes, sir."

"You have one more day, Richard."

The conversation was over.

Castle sighed and shoved his phone into his pocket, rubbed his hands over his face briskly to get rid of the feeling of rebuke - like a student at the principal's office. Shit. His father sometimes just. . .

"So what's our plan?" Eastman said quietly.

"I got no idea," he gruffed out, shaking his head.

"Yeah, me either. But don't worry, man. We'll think of something."

Castle hoped so. Otherwise he'd just spent three days shadowing one of New York's finest for absolutely no reason.

And gotten himself all twisted up in the process.

* * *

"New Jersey Turnpike?" Eastman snorted. He unfolded his long limbs in the passenger seat, trying to stretch, but Castle just drove grimly after her.

The detective had gone out alone this afternoon, late, the sun already touching deep shadows across the city, and when they'd left New York, he hadn't known what to expect. It could have been another personal side trip - like the cemetery two days ago - but he had a feeling.

He wasn't supposed to play on his gut, but here he was doing it anyway. He'd thought, after Ireland in his foolish twenties, that he'd learned that lesson: stick to the plan.

And after Sophia Turner and her dazzling deceit, Castle had expected his traitorous body to fucking _heel_, but instead he was back at it, trailing after a woman like she had the strings to his heart.

No, not his heart. An organ farther south. Castle_ had_ no heart - he was the CIA's machine; he did his job, he saved the world.

This had nothing to do with the glimpse of soft need in her break down at the cemetery, nothing to do with the core of strength and steel in her that wouldn't back down, wouldn't give up.

Nothing to do with her at all. Just a case.

"New Jersey Turnpike," Eastman sighed. "If we went the other direction, we could stop off at my house. Carrie would find us some dinner, you know."

He swallowed and kept Beckett's unmarked in sight, saying nothing.

"We're at the tail end of our twenty-four hours," Eastman said again.

Castle still said nothing; he already knew they were running out of time.

A sign appeared on the turnpike, one of those brown metal things signifying the next exit's offerings. Gas, lodgings, national parks. His eyes raced down the list and then it came to him like lightning.

"It's the Observatory," he said then. "Exit nine. Look. She's slowing down."

"You think?" Eastman said. "But why? Why would Subbarao go to an observatory? She had access to some far more powerful telescopes."

"I bet you twenty."

"Deal. Easy bet."

"Ha. I'm right. Here we go." Castle checked his mirrors and eased into the exit lane, took the ramp as it came, Beckett's car only a hundred yards away from him. He slowed down to keep her from making his Range Rover - it'd been in her neighborhood a few times now - and when she turned towards the observatory, he mentally cheered.

"You were right," Eastman said, sounding disgruntled but lifting a hip to get at his wallet. "But man, this doesn't make sense. She goes to see a guy who spends his life talking about UFOs, she's acting all secretive and weird, she has missing time no one can account for-"

"What are you saying?" Castle laughed, taking the twenty and pushing it into his pants pocket. "Abduction?"

"No, I don't think - we'd know, wouldn't we? We'd know that kind of thing. I mean, we _are_ those mysterious men in black."

"We are at that," he grinned.

"So I'm not saying it _was_, I'm just saying, this woman got weird right before she was murdered. And then she comes out here to this radio telescope?"

He shrugged. "Good meeting place, right? And if she knew the area well, then it's away from her usual stomping ground. She's not bringing the spy shit home with her."

"What do you mean - knew the area well?"

"Didn't she?" he asked, suddenly wondering. "I thought I read that detail, but I don't know. Hey, get Reynolds to check the NYPD's progress, yeah? Because maybe they've actually got a lead here, more than I'm thinking."

"Do this, do that," Eastman muttered. "What am I? Your research ass?"

"Ass?" he chuckled, glancing over at his partner, brother, friend. They'd been together since Afghanistan, where Eastman had been his case worker, and that hooked nose, thin face - it never got old. He always looked the same.

"Ass," Eastman affirmed. "Short for assistant."

Castle laughed and shook his head, kept following Beckett at a distance, going past the observatory's turn-off even as her car disappeared down the long drive.

"Hey, Reynolds says that Subbarao used to work here."

"See?" Castle murmured, feeling like maybe they were getting somewhere. "She had the meeting here. Or she was scouting ahead at least."

"Maybe," Eastman said, sounding reluctant. "Wanna bet? I can win my twenty back."

"No bet. I'm going to park at the back here, and when the detective leaves, you go in and see what she asked about. I'll keep Beckett on GPS and we can catch up to her afterwards."

Eastman winced. "I get all the fun jobs."

"Only because you're my favorite."

* * *

The darkness had settled deeply over the Range Rover when Eastman hustled back, shutting the door after him with a shiver. Castle looked up from the GPS screen and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Subbarao used the telescope here. She took video of a certain section of the sky and then she erased it."

"You shitting me?" he grunted. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It's the same section of the sky as our satellite."

His mouth dropped open. "Well, _fuck_. She was orienting - figuring out the coordinates for our satellite so she could task the telescope at the Science Center."

"Looks like," Eastman said grimly.

Castle slammed his hand into the steering wheel.

"But-" Eastman continued.

"What?" he said harshly. They had _proof_ now. Fuck, they had proof Subbarao had been siphoning coded CIA data from that satellite.

"She took something with her when she left here. The researcher, Harrison, wouldn't tell me more and I didn't want to arouse suspicion if she was part of things."

"What'd she do with it? Did Beckett-"

"I don't know if she gave it to Beckett. But I bet she's got _something_ of Subbarao's. I bet our little traitor gave that information to someone and Beckett's tracked it down."

Castle glanced down to the GPS screen and the healthy green dot of her vehicle. He scraped his hand over his jaw and couldn't shake the crazy, stupid idea churning in his guts like _need._

No. It wouldn't work.

Would it?

"You said. . .men in black," Castle started slowly. "The SETI research, the UFO guy. . .we've already set it up ourselves, taking Subbarao's office furniture. So."

"So?"

"We still got that EMP device in the trunk?"

"Hell, _no_. No. We are _not _using an EMP - not around so much civilization. Are you nuts?"

"Actually, Beckett's not that far from us and she'll be on that lonely stretch in about thirty minutes. We can get there. We stall out her car. We bring in the chopper to flash a light. . ."

"You are insane."

"Men in black. We take her, interrogate her back at the Warehouse, drop her off home nicely sedated and with a fuzzy memory."

Eastman was regarding him like he'd grown a second head. And then his eyes narrowed and he stared off into the distance. "Actually."

"Works, doesn't it?"

"Your father is gonna flip out."

"Fuck him; he said twenty-four hours. We're doing this."

* * *

Her car died.

In the sudden quiet, it was a beautiful night, despite the chill of the November air and the scent of decaying leaves. The dark sky was glittering with stars, handfuls of them, and he closed his eyes a moment to revel in it.

Castle took that first breath and then opened his eyes. "Crichton, your cue," he murmured into his phone.

The black ops chopper flashed its spotlight and he saw, through the brilliance of its whiteness, Beckett lean towards the window and look up.

Castle primed the injector in his hand and started forward in a running crouch. He saw her using a forearm to block the light, the wince of her eyes as she was dazzled, but when he got to her car, he didn't even have to pick the lock.

She had moved to open the door to investigate, her hand on her holstered weapon, so he jerked the door out of her grip, moved swiftly to plunge the sedative into her neck.

He couldn't help but be impressed by the resistance she offered even as the drug dumped into her system, the half-draw of her gun, and he caught her before she could slump out of the car.

Castle paused in his crouch by her door, his heart rate steady until this very moment with Kate Beckett in his arms. She was warm and heavy with sedation, her face against his neck, and he gathered her knees into his lap to stand.

But he took a long moment - just to make sure she was really out - and let himself breathe her in, her warm scent, the blossoms and musk of her skin more redolent and deeper and richer than the light touch he'd smelled in her home.

Her hair was soft where it brushed his jaw, catching on his scruff, and he stood now and carried her back to his car.

She was his now.


End file.
